things. Roy didn’t believe in the occult, but offered encouragement
and coffee. He was drinking no fewer than twenty cups of coffee a day
at that point, and brought a large thermos wherever he went. The
woman drank nervously alongside him. He asked her where she was
going but she would not say.
She was going to Gunung Kemukus—Smoky Mountain, though it
was not really a mountain, nor particularly smoky. It was a perfectly
ordinary hill only a few kilometers from Solo, close to where the
famous Java Man fossils were found. Though the place itself was
unremarkable, the rituals performed there were anything but
common.
On a certain day every month an odd smattering of Javanese
from all over the island and from all corners of society showed up at
Kemukus to partake in an astonishing ceremony. Though the
Javanese were extremely gregarious and rarely went anywhere
without a large group of friends and family in tow, visitors to
Kemukus always arrived secretively and alone. There were certainly
no children there, nor were there any families. In truth, there weren’t
any friends either. That was because at Kemukus the principal
activity was to have sex with a total stranger, communally and out in
the open on the site of a sacred grave. A tangled tango under the
moonlight, cheek to cheek.
The bulk of the pilgrims were conservative, middle class and
married. Almost all were devout followers of Islam. They came to
Kemukus not for pleasure, but as a last resort. They were all
tormented souls, convinced that they bore terminal curses, and that
the only way they could remove their bad luck was to have
anonymous sex with a stranger in this graveyard, and to do so in
plain view of everyone else.
Taking the appearance of this kind, mysterious man as a sign, the
Javanese lady started to explain to Roy where she was going, to
inexpertly invite him to be her lover this night, but was stopped short
by what occurred next.
Most highways in Java are narrow strips where it was crucial to
keep a look out for the occasional maniac truck overtaking in the
opposing lane or the unsuspecting animal wandering across the
uneasy borderlands between the rural and the industrial. From time
to time, these worlds collide.
From out of a nearby field, a group of enraged buffalo came
charging towards them. With a savage momentum and an inflexible
ABYSSINIA
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